The Speed Channel Turns 10

Truth be known, if the Speed Channel were ever going to attract big numbers, and Murdoch loves really big numbers, it would only find them among the NASCAR hordes. In its cable experience, Fox had seen that including NASCAR programming on the FX Channel had increased the number of homes it was in by 27 percent. A similar bump occurred overnight at the Speed Channel after Fox took over.

As Liberatore explains, "If we had not added NASCAR, the viewership growth would have stopped. Everything would have stalled, and at best, Speedvision would have been in maybe 40-some-million homes. In worst case, you start going backward."

By 2005, the channel was devoting 25 percent to NASCAR programming, and a good portion of that was dedicated to rebroadcasts of Cup and Busch races, which helped Fox amortize the cost of the $1.6 billion package. Also, it was airing practice and qualifying and providing the at-track shows, Trackside, Raceday, and Victory Lane, which generate ratings five to 10 times a showing of American Muscle Car. Complaints now centered on shows the purists hated, like Unique Whips.

Liberatore laughs, "We did get death threats and stuff like that at Speed when we changed programming. We would read the letters and laugh — and then lock the doors."

But at the Fox executive offices in L.A., the drumbeat continued for more NASCAR coverage.

Liberatore resisted. It still made no business sense, he thought, to focus solely on NASCAR. "I still believe that NASCAR has a 6 or 10 to 1 audience ratio [6 to 10 NASCAR devotees for every Speedvision purist]. But I believed in some type of protection for the overall racing niche, because if you put all your eggs in one basket, you kind of live and die with the one form of the sport."

Liberatore's obstinacy resulted in his contract not being renewed when it expired in June 2005.

"It was difficult, in some ways, because I had a dual reporting structure. The message I was getting from one side was, 'Look, this needs to be a NASCAR channel, you need to do more with NASCAR. You need to do all these NASCAR-related things.' A lot of them were good ideas, but I felt some of them weren't." On one hand were the executives who had overpaid for the Fox/NASCAR package (and were trying to offset costs) and, on the other, the cable group that was only interested in profits. In the middle was Liberatore. "But then, at the same time, we had some budget constraints, so I was left in this position of trying to manage the budget, but manage this enormous NASCAR pressure that was coming. And the only way you really could have done that, in my opinion, was maybe to start eliminating things, or start doing things that I would not think would be great for the network."

When Liberatore's four-year watch ended, the Speed Channel had increased the homes it was in by 67 percent and revenues and average prime-time viewership had more than doubled. Yes, the programming mix changed, but not as much as the purists suspected. NASCAR's turf took fully a fourth of the channel, but the amount of racing stayed about the same for cars and bikes, despite purist protests to the contrary.

In addition, a number of different series were developed directed at TV's all-important 18-to-24 crowd. The break-out hit is Pinks, where participants wager their cars — the owners' "pink slips"—in races. In its second season, over two million watch Pinks each week (it shows multiple times), with 473,000 watching the original show. Unique Whips attracts a huge audience — it, too, in essence making Wednesday the night for the MTV generation.

Today, Speed is run by Hunter Nickell, who previously headed another Fox regional sports channel, FSN South, which had more than 10 million subscribers compared with the 65 million homes he inherited at Speed.